Peter: Any more questions, Detective Zade?
Zade: Just a few, Mr... Peter. You were looking for new partners in your business, correct?
Peter: Yes. As I said, Johannes' work had not been up to his high standards, high standards that my clients expect from me.
Zade: Did you think that Laura Web was a safe partner to have?
Peter: You mean those charges from a while back? Bah! Laura's a little bipolar maybe, but she would never hurt anyone. She's animated and lively, but sometimes in a way that attracts bad attention. However, she's very good at what she does.
Zade: And Mr. Reader? Do you think he's a good match for you?
Peter: Ah, Jon! He's a bright young boy. I remember when I was that young. Eager to please everyone but rarely given the opportunity. He reminds me of Johannes in that respect. Jon has a lot of potential that if harnessed properly could be a gold mine.
Zade: Has it always been about the money, Peter?
Peter: What else is there?
Zade: Love. Human contact. Being able to spend your time face-to-face with someone who cares as deeply for you as you do for her.
Peter: (smiling sadly) Allison. My poor, dear Allison. I decided long ago that love would never be in the cards for me and her.
Zade: It must have hurt to see her buying Johannes' love like she did.
Peter: I don't know what you're.(long pause) Yes. Yes, it did. All those years that Johannes took money from her, I begged him to take his share. But he just laughed at me and said that he was better than money. He was an artist. He didn't need money.
Zade: But he did need you, didn't he?
Peter: Yes. And I needed him. I needed him even though it broke my heart to see how he treated her. He took her money and her love for granted. What a bastard he was!
Zade: So you think he knew where that money came from?
Peter: The hell he didn't know! I saw the bank statements in his house. He knew that money was coming from Allison.
Zade: True. But he thought she was your silent partner. He only took the money because he thought it was his fair share.
Peter: What? Allison and I were never partners. Lovers at times, but never partners.
Zade: That's what Allison told him. She used your complicated relationship with her as cover to give him the money he couldn't bring himself to ask from you.
Peter: She always was a sly little fox.So she really never loved me? All those times she was just using me to get to Johannes. I thought . I wanted to believe . that she couldn't decide between him and I.
Zade: Is that why you poisoned him?
Peter: What? No. I mean, no I didn't poison him. I told you I was having dinner with Jon when Johannes was killed.
Zade: And earlier, when you met with Johannes?
Peter: We drank and smoked cigars like old times. We were like brothers again. Almost. Almost like brothers again.
Zade: And the Kindle?
Peter: Yes, the Kindle. Johannes and I had a good laugh over that one. A good piece of technology for its time, but it was never as a good as Johannes in his prime.
Zade: Didn't Newt Tek help develop that?
Peter: You know Tek? Yes, he was one of the original designers. I've tried to work with him many times, but he's more of a hardware geek than a people person. Still, put him together with the right people, and you'd have a gold mine.
Peter stopped talking abruptly sensing that he had said something wrong. I pounced at the chance.
Zade: Someone like Laura Web and Jonathan Reader, perhaps?
Peter: Mmmm.
Zade: It was always about the money, wasn't it? Johannes never stopped being good at what he did. Your profits just kept shrinking. The "force of nature" was just as magnetic as ever, but you squeezed less and less money out of what he did.
Peter: Yes! Alright! Johannes was still the lodestone! I can't deny of him of that even now. But I needed money. He sat there on his pedestal of artistic integrity built with the bricks of hypocrisy and laughed at me. "I'm not doing it for the money, Peter." That's what he said to me.
Zade: So you told him that you had other plans? New partners to replace him. Partners that would make you richer than he ever could.
Peter: Yes. And it broke him. I was ashamed at first. I tried to convince him that we could all work together. But he wouldn't have any of it. He ran back to Allison.
Zade: You felt bad for hurting him, but he went back to her and broke your heart for the last time.
Peter: I was livid. When I found out that he went back to her, I decided that he wasn't worth feeling guilty about. I showed him the new business model I had worked out with Laura, Jon, and Tek. His future in the business was gone unless he cooperated with me.
Zade: You told him to break it off with Allison permanently.
Peter: Yes. And he did. When he knew that his work was done, unless we chose to include him, he broke it off.
Zade: So why did you poison him? Did he find a flaw in your plans? Was he going to beat you and get the girl?
Peter: No. No. There was no flaw. I didn't poison him.
Zade: I think there was. You and he were sitting in his study, chatting up old times. He showed you the Kindle, and you both had a good laugh. But then he starts talking about what went wrong with the Kindle. He paints a picture of the future failure of your new project. A failure that was guaranteed as long as he was around to steal your customers.
Peter: I didn't go there to kill him.
Zade: But he was right. You could see the flaw, too. You must have always known it was there. That's why you took the poison with you that night. You knew you might need. And when Johannes started threatening everything you had put together, when he started boasting about going back to Allison and leaving you and your new partners to fail, you decided it was time. With Johannes gone, your project would be success because all the competition had been removed. With Johannes dead, Allison's choice would be made, and you would get her back, too.
Peter: No. No. No. No. Nooooo!
Zade: You argue with him and promise him the lion's share of the money, but that's the one thing he doesn't need. So you hide your anger, and he becomes complacent. You agree that he's won. "You're always right, Johannes. You always did know this business best." That's what you say. And he believes you. When you get the chance, you slip him the poison, and you make a toast. A toast to.a toast to.
Peter: The book. A toast to the book. That was always a weakness for Johannes. He loves his books.
Zade: And that was the end of Mr. Book.
Peter Printer Publius was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. A few months later, Ms. Web, Mr. Tek, and Mr. Reader formed a new company and became the world's largest literary producers within months. Their product combined sleek new technology with the freedom of the internet and the ease of the book. Readers and writers everywhere were disappointed with the murder of Mr. Book but were forced to use the only remaining alternative. Johannes had been right. As long as he was alive, Peter's new plans would never had succeeded. The only way for Peter to make his project a success was to remove its only obstacle: Johannes Gutenberg Book.
I couldn't decide what motivated Peter more: the money or Allison Dollar. I believe he truly loved her and thought that she would come back to him when Johannes was finally gone. When she showed up every day of his trial, I thought maybe he was right. But she never said a word until the judge handed down his sentence. After the gavel fell, she cried out, "Johannes will live forever in my heart! Peter, I hope you burn in hell!" Shortly after being checked in to prison, Peter killed himself.
In the end, I think it was money that made Peter kill Johannes. But it was knowing that he had never had Allison that made him kill himself.
(In the near future, I will add some pictures to spice things up a bit. I will also create a place to leave comments, thoughts, suggestions, rants, and raves. Thank you for following my story to this point. I hope it was a good read!)